KCHI WIIKWEDONG ANISHINAABE HISTORY PROJECT
THIS IS THE KCHI WIIKWEDONG ANISHINAABE HISTORY PROJECT, AN EFFORT TO REPRESENT THE HISTORY OF THE ANISHINAABEK OF THE GRAND TRAVERSE REGION MORE PROMINENTLY AND ACCURATELY IN PUBLIC SPACES AND THROUGH PUBLICLY AVAILABLE RESOURCES.
For decades, one of the only vestiges of Anishinaabe history acknowledged in Traverse City has been the ‘Old Indian Trail, Cadillac to Traverse City,’ which is marked by white concrete trail markers.
The Old Indian Trail is one part of this story of Anishinaabe people and land around the ‘Big Bay’, the Kchi Wiikwedong. The markers were installed in the 1960s and 1980s, and are the inspiration for this current project.
Digitally, this project collects histories of Kchi Wiikwedong Anishinaabek that have resulted from contact with non-Anishinaabek. This is done as much to show what these records reveal (and why) as to show what they cannot.